Ashes to Ashes
by Starlit Skyline
Summary: In which Yusuke learns to move on, Kurama grieves, Hiei thinks he can understand a few thing better now and Kuwabara proves to be unusually wise.


_Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho._

_Genre: Friendship, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Angst and a bit of both Humor and Tragedy_

_Rating and_ warnings:_ T for character death, cussing and drinking._

_Pairings: some Yusuke x Keiko and Kuwabara x Yukina_

_AN: I don't really have much to say, except that I hope you will enjoy reading this and that I hope I did the characters justice. There are some minor OCs in here, but they make no real appearances in the story even though they are important in the grant scheme of the fic. The last thing I have to say is to leave a review at the end if this was to your liking._

.

Ashes to Ashes  
_by _Starlit Skyline

Genkai's shrine had never been quite so lively – and that, in itself was an amazing feat. Over the last couple of years, Genkai found that "lively" couldn't even begin to describe all the trouble her charges had gotten themselves into. Today, however, was lively in a good way.

Yes, today Genkai's ancient shrine was home to a small, traditional Japanese wedding. The attendants of said wedding were currently seated in a spacious room, either chattering excitedly or silently waiting for the ceremony to begin. Even Genkai couldn't mask the small smile that tugged at her wrinkled face.

But none was happier that the husband-to-be! It was, after all, one of the happiest days – hell, the happiest day! – in the life of Urameshi Yusuke. (The others being the day his children would be born).

When the couple entered a few minutes later, everyone fell silent. Excitement was palpable in the air, except around the two guests in the front row. Around them, apprehension was thinly veiled but still went unnoticed by most everyone else in the room, sans perhaps the sharp eyes of Genkai – who, if she indeed saw the heavy shadow in the demons' eyes, decided not to comment.

As for the two demons in the front row, both in black suits and their usually messy hair combed and tied, they said nothing. There was a smile on Kurama's face, and he masked all other emotions well. Hiei, who sat beside him, was trying not to be indifferent. From what he was told, this was extremely important in human culture – which he couldn't care less about – but it was also something clearly and immensely important to Yusuke. Therefore, Hiei had decided to be on his best behavior.

Neither Hiei or Kurama thought Yusuke's decision was right or wise – it would surely bring him only pain and suffering in the end – and both had tried to talk him out of it in their own ways. Yusuke had held fast however, and his two demon companions had given up after some time. They hoped Yusuke would make the best of this marriage, of this human life – before it all faded with age.

But for now, the two guests in the front row did not wish to disrupt the moment of ignorant bliss that hung over Genkai's shrine like a warm fog.

* * *

"_You did what?" Hiei asked with narrowed eyes._

"_I proposed." Yusuke answered._

_Kurama had a slight frown on his face, his green eyes heavy "Yusuke..." the fox spirit began warily._

"_I'm doing this Kurama and nothing you have to say will change my mind." Yusuke's tone was hard as steel when he announced this, leaving no room for further arguments.._

"_Foolish." The fire demon spat, but it came out more as an irritated sigh._

_Yusuke shook his head at their behavior. "Look you guys, I know I'm a demon and all that shit and Keiko isn't going to be there forever. I just... want to have her while I can." Yusuke admitted, faltering._

_Kurama looked sympathetic. Hiei looked as though he was going to call him an idiot again._

* * *

"You did what?" Yusuke sputters, coughing. Great, Kuwabara just had to drop a bomb-shell on him when he was busy gulping down his drink. Real perfect. That and half the café they were sitting in was staring at him. Peachy. Didn't these people have lives?

A glare in their general direction threatened the curious stares to mind their old business. It was enough to make them do just that.

Across the table, Kuwabara shruged – and Yusuke was pretty sure him being so nonchalant was just to annoy him. "I told Koenma I'm not going to get involved with Spirit World anymore – well, until I die, obviously." Kuwabara answered, as if it wasn't all that important at all.

"But _why?_" Yusuke, try as he might, couldn't stop the note of desperation that had entered his voice.

"Urameshi, how old am I?" Kuwabara questioned abruptly, putting his own drink on the table and staring his once rival square in the face.

Yusuke frowned, and a bit of his anger seeped into his expression. "What does that have to do with anything?" he demanded, his voice more level than either had expected it to be.

"It does," said Kuwabara "because I want to find myself a wife, get married, start a family, see my kids grow up – you get where I'm going right?"

Yusuke still hadn't wanted to believe it "What about Yukina?" It was a last ditch effort.

"I still like her Urameshi. But I won't make her suffer. She's gonna live long after I'm gone, I could never do that to her. She deserves better." Kuwabara reasoned with a tinge of remorse. It was obvious he too wishes things were different, but still:

"This is for the best."

* * *

If there was one thing that Youko Kurama had never expected to become, it was a godfather. He had expected Yusuke to pick Kuwabara, it was the obvious choice in the _kitsune's_ mind. However, he hadn't even dreamed he'd been bestowed with that title as well – even Hiei had!

Though Hiei hadn't known the meaning of the word "godfather" when he'd been told. Kurama had quickly rectified that and even though Hiei had snorted and called them all sentimental fools Kurama hadn't missed the faint pink dusting his cheeks. And from the way Yusuke was grinning, he hadn't missed it either.

It would be so fun to tease him about it, but that would come later.

* * *

The first child of Toushin Yusuke and his wife Keiko, Riko, was a perfect bled of her parents – he had he father's messy ebony hair and bright eyes, but her face and physiology was like a spitting image of her mother. Most importantly, she didn't seem to have developed a temper yet – but only time would tell.

She wasn't overly loud or rowdy, which was a surprise – but she was still young and spent most of her time sleeping, as most babies are wont to.

The first time Kurama had seen her sleeping, he'd almost had a panic attack. He'd agreed to baby-sit the little girl for a few hours while Yusuke took Keiko out to a restaurant. Only the strong scent and the pulse of her meager spirit energy had kept him from doing anything drastic. For a moment, he thought she was dead. For a moment, all the children he had ever murdered had flashed before his eyes.

He'd barely managed to compose himself before Yusuke and Keiko had returned from their night out.

* * *

About two years after Riko was born came the twins.

The first one was dubbed Ken, the second one Hiroto. They were like day and night. While Ken was self-assured and arrogant in his own right, as much as one demon baby could be, Hiroto was a flaming ball of anger who cried and wailed – it was half expected that he'd start screaming obscenities any time now – at the slightest discomfort or anything that was not his liking. Of course, most of the time his unspoken request were ignored, as they didn't want to spoil the youngest _toushin_.

It was also amazing that, by the age of four, the two boys had gotten into enough fights with each other that it could rival the amount of times their father had gotten into street fights (before becoming Spirit Detective, of course).

They were quite amusing to watch.

And Hiroto, quite the surprise, had taken an immense liking to Hiei – which had had Yusuke rolling on the floor in laughter and Kuwabara choking on his own. Admittedly, it was quite hard for Kurama to stifle his own chuckles. Hiei had just glared bloody murder on them all.

But then the twins would get into a fight with each other, Riko would start crying, Keiko would come in to calm them down and shout at Yusuke, Yusuke would say to let his sons be – it was quite obvious the two would always fight, so what was the point of stopping them now? – Kuwabara would somehow get caught in the crossfire, Hiei would hide a smile from his post against the wall and Kurama would watch the entire scene play out with mirth and affection hidden behind his green gaze.

Kurama still couldn't believe he could call himself their godfather.

* * *

The funeral was a hushed, somber affair – and Yusuke was sure Genkai would have hated it if she were able to see it. He knows that he did.

He hated the cold slab of stone stuck in the ground, engraved with some meaningless words that could never even hope to describe the person they represented. He hated the black cloths and white roses all around. He hated the sunny sky above them that seems so inappropriate this day – or maybe they were inappropriate with their melancholy and grief on such a nice, clear day.

Genkai definitely would have hated it, but his mentor wasn't there to tell them off or yell in their ears or tear their ears off their skulls – she was somewhere far away. Somewhere Yusuke couldn't reach, and he hated it.

He hated the fact that he'd likely never see the old hag again most.

* * *

"_What am I going to do, when there's nothing left for me in this world?"_

"_Move on to another." was Hiei's answer._

_Yusuke frowned "I don't know if I can move on."_

"_This is my home, my family – I'm dead without them." he continues._

"_You will still have us." Kurama amended._

"_Yes, Detective, or have you forgotten your deal with Koenma?" Hiei had added, it was the closest to affection as he was likely to get. The effort was still very much appreciated._

"_Yeah, yeah... I'm actually starting to miss the toddler."_

_Kurama chuckled "Well, you'll have plenty of time to see him in the future."_

"_Yeah, an eternity working for a kid... wonder how long would it take for him to become an actual teenager. Anyone wanna bet?" Yusuke says with a ghost of a smile forming on his lips._

"_Che. Is that all you plan to do? Forever?" the disdain was clear in Hiei's voice._

_Yusuke merely shrugged "Well, I haven't really thought about it, but yeah. That, raising the kids to be good demons – which you two are so going to help me with, mourning, saving the world again, being quasi-Spirit Detective again, bugging the toddler, bugging you two–"_

"_You honor us, my Lord." Kurama said jokingly._

_Yusuke waved him off. "Yeah, yeah, save it for your future girlfrie– that's it! I'll find you a girlfriend, fox-boy!"_

_Kurama blinked, bewildered "What?"_

"_You heard me Kurama! And you too Hiei! No wait, first I need you to open up to your sister – then I can plan-" _

"_You are not telling my sister who I am!" Hiei all but screamed._

"_Nope, but you are." was the teasing answer._

"_Yusuke... don't push it." Kurama had warned. Hiei had already disappeared by then, but that didn't seem to dampen Yusuke's mood in the slightest._

"_He'll do it when he's ready." he assured._

_Kurama merely raised an elegant brow. "You do realize that could take several millennia?"_

_Yusuke just grined "We'll speed it up a bit Kurama, no biggie."_

* * *

The smell in the room was heavy with chemicals. The seemingly young man sat on a plastic chair in the waiting room stared blankly at the floor. Yusuke wasn't aware the uncomfortable contraption he was sitting on or the stench of death and antiseptics burning his nostrils. His eyes were glassy yet strangely focused. He was preparing himself for the worst.

After what seemed like an eternity, a doctor came to deliver the dreaded news:

Urameshi Atsuko had died of lung cancer in her fifty-second year of life.

Later, her son wouldn't hold back his tears. He'd cry and curse and beg and deny. For the first few moments after receiving the news however, he said nothing, did nothing and then turned on his heel and left the hospital. He wasn't seen nor heard from for the next couple of days.

His friends knew better than to console him right away. They left him to grieve in peace.

* * *

It was much, much worse when Keiko died.

Yusuke didn't really remember much of it. It had been like he'd been walking through a dream – or a fog-covered swamp with no end or escape in sight.

He just remembered staying strong for his kids – his three wonderful, beautiful children – but once he'd left them at Shizuru's for a few hours, he'd finally able to fall apart away from prying eyes.

He didn't want to remember anything more than that.

* * *

_He was in the forest near Genkai's old shrine when Hiei landed a few feet from him. He felt too empty to care._

_Yusuke made no move to hide his tears, and surprisingly Hiei didn't sneer in his face or call him weak. Maybe he'd finally grown a heart, or maybe he just knew that Yusuke could smack him half-way across Japan if he said the wrong thing._

"_The human heart..." Hiei paused, his voice unreadable, and Yusuke was sure he was about to say something insulting – and he didn't know if he'd be able to restrain himself from punching the other demon in the face if he did – when Hiei continues in a quiet voice. "...is one of the most fragile things I have ever come across."_

_Yusuke heard him anyway, but before he could even open his mouth to ask what the hell the fire demon was talking about Hiei was gone._

* * *

Hiei had once thought that grief was a strictly human emotion. He throws that way of thinking out the proverbial window when Kurama picked up his phone one day when the two of them had been out for a walk, then promptly dropping it to the ground in a few moments after answering.

"Fox?" he'd questioned warily. What could have provoked such a strong reaction from the ancient Youko?

Kurama had shaken his head. Then repeated the motion, again and again. When Hiei had taken a step foreword the demon fox had turned around and _ran_. It had left Hiei perplexed and with a bubbling worry settling in the pit of his stomach (though he would never admit to feeling such an emotion). Silent and unseen, he'd followed his long-term companion.

He was not prepared for the sight that had greeted him once he'd entered Kurama's home through the fox's bedroom window. He'd been huddled in a corner, rocking back and forward like a human child after a nightmare, and clutching his pillow to his chest.

What truly made Hiei freeze was the quiet sobs he could hear coming from the _kitsune's_ shaking frame.

"Kurama? Kurama, tell me what's wrong!" he'd demanded, thoroughly unsettled. What had happened? Whoever had done this to the Fox would have hell to pay!

Again, he was not prepared for the answer – quiet as it had been. "She's dead." The broken whisper had sounded from Kurama's quivering lips "Mother... is..." he got no further, for sobs – stronger and louder than before – broke out into the eerily quiet room.

Not knowing what to do, Hiei had bolted for the Detective's home – emotions were not his strong point, and he'd probably end up making Kurama suffer even more by saying something he should not have.

When he and Yusuke had arrived back at Kurama'a apartment, Kurama had miraculously stopped sobbing. What he was doing instead made the _jaganshi_ question the _kitsune's_ current state of mind.

Kumara had sat on the floor, picking and tying and tearing bouquets of flowers with no real purpose or thought behind his movements. Hiei did not know what disturbed him more – Kurama destroying his most valued possesions or the dead look that now haunted his forest green eyes.

* * *

This disturbing behavior had continued for a couple of days – in which Hiei had broken quite a few things in his temper-tantrums, Yusuke had explained that they had to be gentle and careful with their words so as not to further Kurama's grief, and Kurama had destroyed more than half of the plants he owned.

Suffice to say, it was one of the most disconcerting things Hiei had ever experienced. Would his reaction be something similar if Yukina–

He'd cut himself off angrily before that thought could go any further.

In the end, Yusuke had announced with a sigh. "That's it! I'm calling Kuwabara. He's the only one of us who has a clue how to deal with emotional junk." The phone in the Kuwabara residence had already been ringing by the time he finished the sentence.

* * *

"_You guys should leave."_

"_What the-? You kickin' us out? What we do?!"_

"_You don't belong here anymore."_

_Yusuke's face scrunched up into a furious scowl "Hey, listen here buddy–"_

"_No, you listen." Kuwabara cut him off. "You don't have anything worth staying for here, and it's obvious it's just making you suffer, so it's high time you leave."_

_Yusuke blinked, then frowned "What about you?"_

_Kuwabara smiled, almost self-mockingly "I'm not moving to Demon Central, Uramashi. Besides, I'm pretty sure they have a "no humans allowed" policy."_

_The lame joke only made Yusuke's ire spike once more. "Kuwabara, stop goofing around!" the_ toushin_ yelled._

"_But I don't wanna!" Kuwabara was actually laughing by then and it was almost like old times. Almost. "That's what makes me the great Kuwabara!" the orange-haired man boasted._

_Yusuke can only sigh. "Man, you never gr__ow up."_

_Kuwabara's grin faded immediately, replaced with a seriousness he'd only ever had when fighting. "Yeah, but I grew old." he pointed out. "I know why you're still here, Kurama and the Shrimp too. And I don't like you hanging around like a pack of vultures waiting for me to drop dead."_

_Yusuke felt his stomach drop. "That's not..." he tried to protest, but the words died in his throat._

"_Don't fool yourself, Urameshi. I'm no demon. I ain't gonna live as long as you."_

_Yusuke bit him lip, and it was so clear in his expressive eyes that even he couldn't make sense of all the conflicted emotions running around in their depths. Finally he said:_

"_It's not fair."_

_Kuwabara's expression was caught somewhere between a smile and a snort. "Maybe from your point of view." he said "I accepted I'm gonna die someday, Urameshi. I'm only human, it's what we do. But I had a good ride, you know? A wife, kids, you as a best friend and even Kurama and Hiei – if that ain't a good life I don't know what is!"_

"_Kuwabara..." Yusuke trailed off, uncertain of what to say._

"_But you... you have that too... even though Keiko isn't around anymore, you still have your little girl, Riko, and Hiroto and Ken too, don't you? And you have Kurama and Hiei! You'll have them for the rest of your dang life!" he pauses then, as if contemplating something._

"_You're gonna die too, you know?" he said after a while._

"_Kuwabara, what are you talking about?"_

"_Well, you got yourself killed so many times it's probably inevitable! But when we meet in the Afterlife or wherever Koenma sends us to – I am so going to kick your ass!"_

_Some things never change._

_Yusuke's smile felt a bit strained on his face, but he forced it to remain in place "Why not go a round now, for old times sake?"_

_Kuwabara's booming laughter filled the air around them._

"_You kiddin'? Even I know I'm not that young anymore, Urameshi!"_

* * *

Kubawara hadn't been able to come over, apparently he'd gotten himself stuck in one thing or another and could bail himself out of it. That, or he was stuck in an argument with his father-in-law again.

"Okay, time for the last resort." Yusuke was already walking towards the kitchen when he said that. He returned with a glass bottle abd a few glasses seconds later.

Hiei's face twisted into a scowl when cought whiff of the bottle's contents. "Alcohol, Detective?" he asked derisively "Your going to employ that vile human tactic?"

"It worth a try." Yusuke argued "And besides, it's either that or have Kurama as a walking corpse for who knows how long."

Hiei's response was to snatch the bottle from Yusuke's grip and march over to their third. He knelt next to the red-haired _kitsune,_ and said in a voice far gentler than anything Yusuke had ever heard from the fire demon:

"Here, Kurama, drink this. It will make you better."

By the time Kazuma had finally been able to make it to Kurama's apartment, it wasn't only the fox spirit that was getting tipsy. Yusuke too had began drinking and appeared that he wouldn't stop any time soon.

It also became apparent that reasoning with them wasn't going to work either. They seemed pretty determined to drown their sorrows and for tonight, Kuwabara decided it would be better if he let them.

This behavior however, was content to last a good while longer.

Before either Hiei or Kuwabara had time to stop it, Yusuke and Kurama became drinking buddies. They'd meet up in the evenings, when Yusuke had already put his children to bed or in the case of Riko, out with friends or at a sleep-over (since the demon blood in them was strong, they aged slower than regular humans - which was hard but not impossible to conceal). They'd start chatting about this topic or another, all empty talk and deceitfully light words, all the while they'd pour one another glasses of sake, wine, beer or any other alcoholic drink they had in stock.

They were usually wasted even before the sun came up.

* * *

In the bellows of Kurama's apartment, Hiei watched his two teammates get wasted for the umpteenth time with bloody red eyes.

Kuwabara had left some hours earlier, apparently his wife had called him home – and while the Fool usually didn't listen to her when he was having "a night out with the guys" he'd said that this was something the three of them – meaning Yusuke, Kurama and Hiei – had to go through together.

Hiei had absolutely no idea what the mortal had been blabbering on about, but he was glad that he was gone in any case. He'd much rather have only two drunkards to watch over, not two drunk demons and a idiot buffoon to boost.

Kuwabara, however idiotic he might have been, had been right about one thing – and Hiei would not allow his two comrades – _friends_, some traitorous part of his mind whispered before he could snuff it out – to destroy themselves like this anymore. No more staring loss in the face, no more holding on to painful memories and no more pity drinking.

Tomorrow, they will leave this world – and everything in it.

.

_Review, please?_


End file.
